Marchigian master who painted in the International Style and was active in Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice, and Orvieto. Gentile is known to have painted frescos in the Doge’s Palace in Venice in 1408, and at the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome in 1427. These works, unfortunately, were destroyed. His major surviving masterpieces are the Polyptych of Vale Romita (c. 1400; Milan, Brera) for the Convent of Vale Romita in Fabriano; the Adoration of the Magi (1423; Florence, Uffizi) for the Church of Santa Trinità in Florence, commissioned by wealthy banker Palla Strozzi for his funerary chapel; and the Quaratesi Polyptych (1425; Florence, Uffizi; London, National Gallery; Vatican, Pinacoteca) for the Quaratesi Chapel in San Niccolò Oltrano in Florence. The first features a Coronation of the Virgin in the central panel, while the secondary panels include standing saints and narratives from the lives of John the Baptist, Peter Martyr, Thomas Aquinas, and Francis. The second includes a predella featuring three other scenes from Christ’s childhood: the Nativity, the Flight into Egypt, and the Presentation in the Temple. Of these, the Nativity is the most innovative, as it presents the earliest rendition of shadows cast in response to an illuminated source within the painting. The third altarpiece, its panels now dispersed, depicts the enthroned Madonna and Child with angels as the central panel, standing saints at either side, and predella narratives from the life of St. Nicholas, to whom the church for which the altarpiece was intended is dedicated.
Ceiling fresco painted by Perino del Vaga as part of the decoration of Andrea Doria’s Palazzo del Principe. The scene, located in the Sala dei Giganti (“Room of the Giants”), depicts the Olympian defeat of the giants, sons of earth goddess Gaia. Saturn, one of the giants, had devoured each of his children because his father Uranus had prophesied that one of them would defeat him. His consort Rhea hid their son Jupiter from him, and once fully grown, Jupiter forced Saturn to disgorge his siblings (Juno, Neptune, Pluto, and Ceres). Together they overthrew Saturn; Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto divided the universe among themselves. Jupiter became the god of the heavens, Neptune of the oceans, and Pluto of the underworld.
The giants rose up against them. To reach Mount Olympus, where the gods presided, they stacked Mount Pelion atop Mount Ossa but were miserably defeated by the gods and cast into the underworld. In the fresco, Jupiter is shown with thunderbolt in hand and the zodiac belt around him, a reference to his having brought order to the universe and established the seasons. Below, the defeated giants lay on the ground in contorted poses. The fresco reveals the influence of Raphael, with whom Perino worked while in Rome, particularly in the arrangement of the upper portion of the scene, which closely resembles the composition in Raphael’s Psyche Received at Mount Olympus in the Villa Farnesina (1517–1518). Doria’s ally, Charles V, used the Sala dei Giganti as his temporary throne room. The fresco by Perino served as allegory of the emperor’s victories against the Protestants.
Commissioned by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese from Annibale Carracci for his newly built Palazzo Farnese in Rome. The subject of the Farnese ceiling is the love of the gods, the inspiration for its overall arrangement being Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling (1508–1512; Rome, Sistine Chapel). As in the prototype, the Farnese ceiling consists of a painted architectural framework, or quadratura, that divides the scenes into three coherent bands and includes nude figures and medallions. The work was also meant to harmonize with Raphael’s mythological frescoes (1513–1518) in the Villa Farnesina, across the Tiber River, by now also owned by the Farnese family.
Using a quadro riportato technique, the artist placed the Triumph of Bacchus in the center. It shows the god of wine and his consort Ariadne in procession with bacchants and satyrs around them in a frenzied revelry. Following the interpretation of theorist Giovan Pietro Bellori, the image is seen as a Neoplatonic allegory of divine love triumphing over its earthly counterpart. Among the most notable secondary scenes are Venus and Anchises and Polyphemus and Galatea. The first is accompanied by an inscription that reads, “This was the beginning of Rome,” referring to the birth of Aeneas, founder of the Latin race, from their union. The scene is eroticized by Anchises’ removal of the goddess’ sandal and her Venus Pudica pose, which indicates her hesitancy to give in to the advances of a mere mortal. In Polyphemus and Galatea the theme is unrequited love, as the nymph ridicules the Cyclops for wooing her. Because Galatea loves Acis, Polyphemus kills his contender with a rock, a scene also frescoed on the ceiling. Other scenes include Cephalus and Aurora, which is believed to have been executed by Agostino Carracci, who assisted Annibale; Diana and Pan; Hercules and Iole; Dedalus and Icarus; Diana and Callisto; Mercury and Apollo; and Arion and the Dolphin.
The Farnese ceiling is one of the greatest masterpieces of the early Baroque era. As part of the decoration of a cardinal’s palace, its blatant sensuality has prompted intense discussion among scholars regarding the frescoes’ intended meaning. The ceiling was already recognized as a masterpiece during Annibale’s lifetime and wielded tremendous influence on artists active in the 17th century. Both Aurora ceilings by Guido Reni (1613; Rome, Casino Rospigliosi) and Guercino (1621; Rome, Casino Ludovisi) owe their compositions to Annibale’s work.
Farnese ancestry can be traced back to the 12th century in Rome. It was not until the reign of Alexander VI (1492–1503) that the family achieved considerable prestige, thanks to the amorous liaison between the pope and Giulia Farnese. In 1534, their fortune increased when one of their own ascended the papal throne as Pope Paul III, who appointed his son Pierluigi duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Castro (1545), the first two regions ruled by the Farnese until 1731 and the last until 1649. The family’s political hegemony was further strengthened when, in 1538, Ottavio Farnese, Pierluigi’s son, married Margaret of Parma, the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Charles V. The Farnese are closely tied to the history of Renaissance and Baroque art. The names Titian, El Greco, Annibale Carracci, Agostino Carracci, Domenichino, Francesco Mochi, and Bartolomeo Schedoni are all linked to the history of their patronage.
Painted by Paolo Veronese for the Dominican Monastery of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. The real subject of the painting is the Last Supper. No sooner had Veronese completed it than he was summoned in front of the tribunal of the Inquisition and accused of rendering the solemn moment when Christ establishes the Eucharist as a sacrament as an indecorous scene filled with buffoons, dwarfs, drunken figures, and animals. To circumvent the harsh penalties levied by the tribunal on those accused of committing heresy, Veronese simply changed the title of the painting to the Feast in the House of Levi, a less solemn episode in Christ’s life. The work relates compositionally to his Marriage at Cana (1563) in the Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. In both, the scene is made to look like a contemporary Venetian banquet lacking reverence. The emphasis on sumptuous fabrics, contemporaneous characters, and the Palladian architectural backdrop cast this work as decidedly Venetian.
An episode from the life of St. John the Baptist. Herod married Herodias, his brother’s wife, and the saint pointed out to them that their union was unlawful. Insulted, Herodias persuaded her husband to have the saint imprisoned. At a banquet, Salome, Herodias’ daughter, danced for Herod so delightfully that Herod promised he would grant her anything she wished. After consulting with her mother, Salome asked for the head of the Baptist, which was granted. The feast of Herod is depicted in three scenes in Fra Filippo Lippi’s frescoes in the choir of the Prato Cathedral (1452–1466). In the central scene, Salome dances for Herod. She receives the head of St. John on a platter on the left. And on the right she presents the platter to her mother while two servants huddle in horror. Benozzo Gozzoli painted the Feast of Herod and Beheading of St. John the Baptist (c. 1461–1462; Washington, D.C., National Gallery) on a single panel, and Donatello presented the episodes of the story in his relief for the baptismal font in the Cathedral of Siena (c. 1425), not side by side, as in the painted examples, but rather one behind the other, convincingly receding into space.
One of the most eminent Portuguese painters of the Renaissance. Fernandes is believed to have been born in Viseu, in central Portugal, where he is first documented in 1501, working on an altarpiece for the chancel in the local cathedral. This altarpiece is composed of 14 panels and is the product of a collaboration by various masters, led by the Flemish Francisco Henriques. The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1503–1505; Viseu, Grão Vasco Museum), part of this group of paintings, is usually attributed to Fernandes. The work, which relies heavily on Flemish artistic standards, includes a Brazilian Indian in lieu of the usual African magus. This is the first representation of such a figure in art. Also for the Viseu Cathedral altarpiece, Fernandes rendered the Enthroned St. Peter (c. 1503–1505; Viseu, Grão Vasco Museum). The heavy angular drapery, detailed background landscape seen through an arcade, and the floor tiles used to establish perspective are Flemish elements Fernandes adopted as his own. In c. 1530, Fernandes went to Coimbra to work on a series of four paintings for the Monastery of Santa Cruz. Of these, only Pentecost (1534–1535) has survived. The work demonstrates a change in style, with elongated figures in rather distorted poses, clearly influenced by Mannerist art.
Painted by Giorgione, although some art historians believe it to be by the hand of his pupil, Titian, while others have suggested that the work represents a collaboration between master and pupil. This is an unconventional picture in terms of its subject matter, which is not completely understood. The most accepted interpretation is that the scene depicts an allegory of poetry. The lute played by one of the figures in the middle ground is a symbol of this literary form, as is the shepherd included in the background. The two nude women are thought to represent the muses who inspire the creative processes involved in composing poetry, their nudity separating them from the earthly realm in which the two men exist. One of the women collects water from a well, perhaps the Hippocrene fountain, the source of inspiration in Mount Helicon where the muses reside. Giorgione added an ethereal quality to the work by adopting Leonardo da Vinci’s sfumato technique. He also borrowed Leonardo’s palette of deep ochres punctuated by deep red and olive tones. The work elaborates on the scenes created by Giovanni Bellini where the landscape takes on an important role.
Priest, doctor, musician, translator of ancient texts, writer, philosopher, and key figure of the Renaissance. Ficino enjoyed the patronage of the Medici rulers of Florence. While in the service of Cosimo de’ Medici, Ficino translated the dialogues of Plato, making them available to the West for the first time and thus providing the essential texts for the revival of Platonism. With Cosimo’s backing, he also established the Platonic Academy in Florence. His translations were followed by his own writing of the Theologia Platonica (1469–1474), Concerning the Christian Religion (1474), and On the Threefold Life (1489), works that seek to reconcile pagan philosophy with Christianity. In the 1480s and early 1490s, while working for Lorenzo “the Magnificent” de’ Medici, he also translated the writings of Plotinus and Proclus, enlightening his followers on the Neoplatonists from antiquity. At Lorenzo’s court, Ficino was one of the learned members who, along with Sandro Botticelli, the young Michelangelo, and poet Angelo Poliziano, shaped the character of Renaissance intellectual and cultural life.
Florentine architect and sculptor who began his career in Rome. There, Filarete executed the bronze doors of Old St. Peter’s, a commission that proved to be a major fiasco, forcing him to leave the city. He arrived in Milan in 1456, and immediately set out to work on the design of the Ospedale Maggiore, until recently the city’s principal hospital. From 1461–1464, Filarete wrote a treatise in which he described an imaginary city called Sforzinda, in honor of his patrons, the Sforza rulers of Milan. He based the social structure of Sforzinda, where some vices are tolerated and harmony resides, on Plato’s descriptions in the Laws of every aspect of city and suburban life. Giorgio Vasari qualified Filarete’s treatise as the most ridiculous book ever written. Regardless of his assessment, the text is of significance to the history of architecture, as it exerted great influence on the architectural experiments with centrally planned structures of Leonardo da Vinci and Donato Bramante, also employed by the Sfoza in Milan. It also provides insight into Renaissance attitudes toward urban planning.
Italian Mannerist painter called Rosso (“red”) by his contemporaries for his red hair. Rosso was the pupil of Andrea del Sarto and a close friend of his fellow student, Jacopo da Pontormo, the two becoming the leading masters of the Mannerist movement. Rosso painted the Descent from the Cross (1521; Volterra, Pinacoteca) for the Cathedral of Volterra, a work that, in fact, relates to Pontormo’s version in the Capponi Chapel in the Church of Santa Felicità, Florence (1525–1528), in that it too features an oval composition with a void in the center and figures in extreme anguish. Particular to Rosso’s style is the harsh lighting dividing the figures’ anatomy and drapery into facets.
Like all Mannerists, the artist looked to Michelangelo for inspiration. The pose of his dead Christ in this painting is based on Michelangelo’s Pietà (1498–1499/1500) at the Vatican. Furthermore, Rosso’s Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro (c. 1523; Florence, Uffizi) borrows from Michelangelo’s Brazen Serpent on the Sistine ceiling, Vatican (1508–1512). This scene depicts a group of Midianite shepherds taking the water the daughters of Jethro drew from a well to give to their flock. Moses, who witnesses their transgression, drives the Midianites away and recovers the water, an action that results in his marriage to Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters. The painting shows the scene from an unusual viewpoint. Michelangelesque nude males in contorted poses jut out at the viewer, some cropped by the frame—anticlassical elements that mark the work as Mannerist.
In 1523, Rosso moved to Rome, but he was forced to flee in 1527, due to the sack by imperial forces. To this period belongs his Dead Christ with Angels (1525–1526; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), painted for Florentine bishop Leonardo Tornabuoni, which borrows its composition from Michelangelo’s Florentine Pietà (c. 1550; Florence, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo) and abandons Rosso’s earlier facetted forms and harsh tonalities and lighting. After wandering through Umbria and Tuscany for some time, Rosso finally settled in France in 1530, where he worked for Francis I in the Palace of Fontainebleau. There, along with Francesco Primaticcio, he founded the Fontainebleau School, a French version of Italian Mannerism.
The Flagellation is the moment when Christ, after having appeared before Pontius Pilate, is tied to a column and beaten with whips—a scene often depicted in art. Examples include Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Flagellation on the east doors of the Baptistery of Florence (1403–1421); Fernando Gallego’s in the Museo Diocesano, Salamanca (c. 1506); Jaime Huguet’s in the Louvre, Paris (1450s); Sebastiano del Piombo’s in San Pietro in Montorio, Rome (1516–1521); and Caravaggio’s in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (1607).
Flemish painter who was active in Spain and may have received his training in Antwerp. In 1495, Flandes was sent to the Spanish court by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to render the likenesses of the royal children. Among these is the Portrait of an Infanta (1496; Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza), believed to represent Catherine of Aragon as a child. In 1496, Queen Isabella of Spain appointed Flandes court painter. For the queen, he created the so-called Polyptych of Isabel la Católica, originally composed of 47 miniature panels, of which fewer than 30 survive, these scattered in various museums throughout the world. Christ Crowned with Thorns (c. 1498; Detroit, Institute of Arts) is one of those panels and presents a delicate rendition with luminous surfaces, typical of the miniaturist tradition. After Isabella’s death in 1504, Flandes created retables for the chapel of the University of Salamanca and the Cathedral of Palencia, where he died in 1519.
When Herod ordered the massacre of the innocents, an angel warned Mary and Joseph of the impending danger to the Christ Child. To ensure his safety, the holy couple took the boy to Egypt. In art, the scene is presented in various forms. Sometimes the Virgin and Child sit on a donkey led by Joseph, an image that grants an opportunity to portray the landscape, as in Annibale Carracci’s Flight into Egypt of 1603 (Rome, Galleria Doria-Pamphili) and Melchior Broederlam’s triptych for the Carthusian Monastery of Dijon (1394–1399), which combines the Flight with Christ’s Presentation in the Temple. Other works show the Holy Family resting from their journey, as in Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt of 1504 (Berlin, Staatliche Museen), where angels comfort the Virgin and Child. Caravaggio’s rendition of c. 1594 (Rome, Galleria Doria-Pamphili) shows an angel playing music, the score held by Joseph, as Mary soothes the Christ Child to sleep. On a few occasions, artists depicted the return of the Holy Family from Egypt, as in Nicolas Poussin’s example in the Cleveland Museum of Art (c. 1627). Here Mary, Joseph, and an older Christ Child travel back to Nazareth on a barge.
The history of Florence begins with the settlements of the Etruscans, whose remains can still be found in the region. In 59 B.C.E., Julius Caesar gave the land of Florentia to his retired soldiers, who, thanks to its primordial location near the Via Cassia and along the Arno River, were able to transform it into a flourishing city. By the early 13th century, in spite of strife between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, Florence had become one of the most prosperous and powerful cities of Europe, its stable economy dependent on cloth manufacturing and banking. The Ciompi Revolt, carried out by day laborers in the cloth industry, paved the way for the Albizzi family to emerge as the rulers of an oligarchic political system. This coincided with the arrival in Florence of the Medici, who, by the end of the 14th century, had established a bank, giving them great wealth and allowing them to become one of the city’s leading families.
In 1433, Cosimo de’ Medici led a political faction that opposed the Albizzi and was exiled for it. Yet, the faction was influential enough to have him recalled the following year. The Albizzi were removed from power, and Cosimo became the new ruler of Florence. Two more exiles interrupted Medici rule: the first in 1494, when Piero de’ Medici ceded Pisa to Charles VIII of France, angering the Florentines, who were already riled up by the preachings of Girolamo Savonarola, and in 1527, when they were expelled from the city after the sack of Rome. Three years later, the imperial forces captured Florence and reinstated the Medici as hereditary dukes. In 1569, the Medici were made grand dukes of Florence, ruling the city in that capacity until 1737, when the family died out.
Key events in Florentine history include the Battle of Montaperti of 1260, when the Sienese defeated the Florentine army, only to be under siege by Florence in 1554–1555, and finally taken in 1557. Pisa was able to ward off Florentine subjugation in the 1215 Battle of Montecatini, but in 1406 they were overtaken. One of the greatest enemies of Florence was Milan. On several occasions, Milanese forces tried to take over the city, but each time they were unsuccessful. A key moment in the struggle against Milan occurred in 1402; it seemed that Florence would fall to the enemy when Giangaleazzo Visconti, commander of the Milanese army, suddenly died. The Battle of Anghiari in 1440 led to victory against Milan, an event commemorated by Leonardo’s fresco in the Sala del Consiglio of the Palazzo Vecchio; Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina, a conflict between Pisa and Florence in 1364, in which the latter emerged victorious, was frescoed on the opposite wall.
In 1478, the Pazzi Conspiracy took place, which resulted in the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici and the wounding of his brother, Lorenzo “the Magnificent.” The conspirators were hunted down and severely punished for their transgression. In 1526, the League of Cognac, an alliance between Pope Clement VII, Francis I of France, Venice, Florence, and Milan, was formed to drive imperial power out of Italy. In retaliation, the imperial forces of Charles V invaded Rome in 1527, and burned and sacked the city, for which the Medici were exiled. It was the 1530 Battle of Gavinana that resulted in the capture of Florence by the imperial forces and the installation of Alessandro de’ Medici as hereditary duke of Tuscany.
Florence is the cradle of the Renaissance, and much of it is owed to the Medici, as it was under their patronage that many of the key figures of art, culture, and science worked. This included artists Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, Giorgio Vasari, Giovanni da Bologna, and Agnolo Bronzino; humanist Poggio Bracciolini; philosopher Marsilio Ficino; satirist Pietro Aretino; poet Angelo Poliziano; and astronomer Galileo Galilei. The Medici also played an important role in the Renaissance revival of ancient texts. Under Cosimo’s patronage, Ficino translated a number of ancient manuscripts from the Greek, making them available for the first time in the West. In 1439, Cosimo established the Platonic Academy, where Ficino taught.
The religious orders that settled in Florence also contributed to the cultural fabric of the city and its growth. They erected churches, convents, and monasteries throughout and commissioned artists to decorate these spaces. Arnolfo di Cambio, for example, built Santa Croce, and Fra Angelico painted a series of frescoes in the San Marco Monastery. The chapels in the newly built churches were assigned to important families, who then commissioned artists to embellish them. Santa Croce alone boasts the chapels of the Bardi and Peruzzi, Bardi di Vernio, and Baroncelli, frescoed by Giotto, Maso di Banco, and Taddeo Gaddi, respectively. Florence lost its preeminence as center of culture and intellectual life during the Baroque era, when the lead was taken by Rome.
The Cathedral of Florence was begun by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296. Twice the work was halted, first when Arnolfo died (c. 1310), and later in 1348, when the Black Death struck. After contributions by Giotto and later Andrea Pisano, it was Francesco Talenti who, in the 1350s, brought the building to completion, except for the dome and façade (fin. 19th century). When Talenti took over as director of the Cathedral Works, he modified Arnolfo’s plan to create a more imposing design, one that would outdo the Cathedral of Siena and the Cathedral of Pisa, the enemies of Florence.
Talenti used four massive square bays to form the nave, with aisle bays that measure half their width, and he designed an octagonal crossing (where the nave and transept cross), echoing its shape in the transept arms and apse. By commingling these octagons with a rectilinear nave, he in essence fused together a central plan with a Latin cross plan. For the exterior, Talenti chose color marble inlays that harmonize with the Baptistery of Florence, only a few feet away. In the interior, he supported the Gothic arches of the nave arcade and the four-partite vaults with massive piers that grant a solid appearance. The crossing was to be covered by a large octagonal dome; however, the expanse was so vast (140 feet) that Florentines would have to wait until the 15th century to find an architect with the skills to build it.
In 1420–1436, the task fell on Filippo Brunelleschi, who, as Giorgio Vasari wrote, traveled to Rome to study and measure ancient structures, which is how he acquired the knowledge needed to build the cathedral dome. Inspired by the ancient prototypes, Brunelleschi devised a double-shelled construction on a skeleton of 24 ribs, only eight of which are visible from the exterior. A lantern allows light to enter the church and stabilizes the structure by preventing the outward tilting of the ribs. The first of its kind, Brunelleschi’s design provided the light construction required to prevent the collapse of such a large dome. Now the landmark of Florence, the dome towers above the city and speaks, as it did in the Renaissance, of the civic pride of its citizens.
Flemish Mannerist painter from Antwerp who established his workshop in 1540, after his return from a trip to Rome. His brother was Cornelis Floris de Vriendt, a sculptor, printmaker, and architect. One of Frans’ most important patrons was William “the Silent” of Orange; among his most notable works is the Fall of the Rebel Angels (1554; Antwerp, Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts), once part of a triptych he rendered for the Fencer’s Guild of Antwerp. The work presents a confusing mass of nude forms in dramatic movement, characteristic of his style, which recalls Perino del Vaga’s Fall of the Giants (c. 1529) in the Palazzo del Principe, Genoa. Floris was also a portraitist. His portrait Falconer’s Wife (1558; Caen, Musée des Beaux-Arts) presents a nonidealized, heavyset woman in monumental form, her facial expression revealing her personality. Among Floris’s other works are the Judgment of Paris (c. 1548; Kassel, Staatliche Museen); the Banquet of the Gods (1550; Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten); and the Head of a Woman (1554; St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum), this last believed to be a study for a larger composition.
In 1525, Francis I of France was captured by Charles V. Upon his release in 1527, Francis decided to restore a small hunting lodge located in the Forest of Bièvre, 55 kilometers from Paris, now known as the Palace of Fontainebleau. In 1530, he invited Rosso Fiorentino to Fontainebleau to work on the decorations. Rosso was soon joined by Francesco Primaticcio, and the two established what today is called the Fontainebleau School, a French version of the Italian Mannerist style. This style is characterized by the use of heavy stucco moldings, frames, garlands, grotesques, and figures, combined with painted scenes. Most salient is Rosso’s invention of a technique called “strapwork,” which entails manipulating the stucco to resemble rolled or folded pieces of leather. The paintings enclosed by these stucco ornaments are often erotic, with fluid lines and highly elegant, stylized figures that show little anatomical detailing.
Rosso died in 1540, and Primaticcio recommended Niccolò dell’Abbate as a replacement. Although some of the works by these masters at Fontainebleau were destroyed and others never completed, etchings exist—rendered by Antonio Fantuzzi, Jean Mignon, Leon Davent, and others—that record the no-longer extant and unrealized decorations. These etchings also helped disseminate this French Mannerist language to other parts of France and the rest of Europe. During the French Wars of Religion, the Palace of Fontainebleau was abandoned, only to be reopened when Henry IV ascended the throne. At this time, the king launched its renovation campaign, assigning Toussant Dubreiul, Martin Fréminent, and the Flemish Ambroise Dubois to the project. These masters are usually qualified as members of the Second Fontainebleau School. While they followed many of the principles established by the first wave of artists working at Fontainebleau, this group also emphasized the use of solid figures, rich tonalities, and greater contrasts of light and dark.
Bolognese painter and the daughter of Prospero Fontana, from whom she received her training. Fontana was an accomplished portraitist, and she also rendered devotional pieces and histories. Examples include her Noli me tangere (1581; Florence, Uffizi) and Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1600; Bologna, Museo Davia Bargellini). In 1577, Fontana married Gian Paolo Zappi, one of her father’s students, who became her assistant. In 1603, she went to Rome, where she worked for Cardinal d’Este, painting for him the Martyrdom of St. Stephen for the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura. This work was destroyed by fire in 1823, and is only known through an engraving executed in 1611, by Jacques Callot. The work was not well received, and Fontana returned to portraiture.
One of her most notable works in this genre is Ginevra Aldrovandi Hercolani (c. 1595; Baltimore, Walters Art Museum), a painting that includes masterful details of costume and jewelry. It presents the sitter as a widow with handkerchief in hand to suggest the tears she has shed over her dead husband. Her lap dog indicates her desire to remain faithful to her husband in spite of his absence. In 1611, Fontana was honored with a medal designed by Felice Antonio Cassone that includes her profile portrait. On the verso, the medal presents the artist in front of her easel, holding the instruments of her trade, and disheveled, to denote that she is caught in a creative frenzy.
A technique that allows artists to render on a flat surface compositional elements in such a way as to grant the illusion that they are receding into space. It entails reducing the dimensions of an object or parts of the figure to conform to the proper spacial relationship. For instance, when Andrea Mantegna painted his Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1490; Milan, Brera), he shortened Christ’s legs, arms, and thorax to place the viewer at his feet as one of the mourners. In Mantegna’s ceiling in the Camera Picta (1465–1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) similar adjustments to the figures grant the illusion that they stand on a parapet above the viewer.
Painter from Forli, a town in the Romagna region of Italy. Little is known of Melozzo’s formative years, and scholarship on this master is complicated by the fact that much of his work has been destroyed. He was active in Rome, Loreto, and Urbino, where he worked alongside Piero della Francesca in the court of Federico da Montefeltro. Giovanni Santi, Raphael’s father, wrote a poem in which he praised Melozzo for his unsurpassed ability to render perspective. This fact is demonstrated by the few works by Melozzo to have survived, including Sixtus IV, His Nephews, and Platina, His Librarian (1480–1481; transferred to canvas; now Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana), one of the frescoes he created for Sixtus as part of the decorations of the pope’s rebuilt and reorganized library at the Vatican. This scene, the earliest known papal ceremonial portrait of the Renaissance, unfolds in an audience room, rendered in convincing perspective, with the pope enthroned and surrounded by his nephews, including Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who later would become Pope Julius II, Michelangelo’s patron. Kneeling in the foreground is Platina, the humanist who worked as the pope’s librarian. He points to the inscription below the figures, which extols his patron’s achievements, while the della Rovere oak branches, the papal family’s heraldic symbol, are intertwined on the piers in the foreground.
In 1481–1483, Melozzo also frescoed the apse in the Church of Santi Apostoli, Rome (fragments now in the Vatican, Pinacoteca, and Rome, Palazzo Quirinale), a work that uses the di sotto in sù technique, an extreme form of foreshortening. Partially destroyed in the 18th century during the building’s renovation, the scene, believed to have been commissioned by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, depicts Christ in Glory, surrounded by windswept musical angels. Melozzo treated the apse as an outdoor space where a miraculous vision unfolds, with figures viewed from below that seem to float above the faithful. This work presages the illusionistic ceiling frescoes of the late 16th and 17th centuries, which seem to break architectural boundaries.
The most important French painter of the 15th century. Fouquet was born in Tours, perhaps the illegitimate son of a priest, as suggested by the fact that the artist applied in 1449 to have his birth legitimized by the pope. Nothing is known of his training. In the 1440s, he was in Rome, where he painted the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV and His Nephews, now lost, as related by Antonio Filarete in his architectural treatise. Fouquet was back in Tours by 1447. There he set up shop and remained until his death, sometime in about 1481, as indicated by the documented references in that year to his wife as a widow. His self-portrait, an enamel created in c. 1450 (Paris, Louvre) and signed with a large and elaborate calligraphy, is the earliest known Northern self-portrait that does not tie into any sort of religious theme.
In about the same year, Fouquet also painted the Melun Diptych (Antwerp; Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts; Berlin, Staatliche Museen), his most famous work. The bipaneled altarpiece shows the donor, Etienne Chevalier, King Charles VII’s controller general, with his namesaint, Stephen, petitioning the Virgin and Child for his salvation. Some have suggested that the Virgin is a portrait of Agnes Sorel, the king’s mistress, who had involvements with Chevalier in governing the kingdom and died in 1450. If this is, in fact, the case, the work would be a commemorative piece in her honor. The work shows Fouquet’s characteristic abstract, rounded shapes, emphasis on clarity, and linear contours. Fouquet also created a number of manuscript illuminations, including the Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier (1452–1460), now in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, and Giovanni Boccaccio’s Des Cas des Nobles Hommes et Femmes Malheureuses of c. 1458, now in Munich (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; Cod. Gall. 369).
A Dominican friar and the leading painter of Florence in the 1430s. Fra Angelico was from Fiesole, where he entered the Dominican monastery in c. 1418, and there he is believed to have illuminated some manuscripts, although none have been identified. Sometime in the 1430s, he moved to the San Marco Monastery in Florence, where from 1438 to 1445, he painted a series of frescoes in the cells and corridors. He also created the Linaiuoli Altarpiece (1433; Florence, Museo di San Marco), his first major work. Commissioned by the Arte dei Linaiuoli, the Guild of Linen Merchants, the altarpiece shows an Enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by St. Mark, to whom the monastery is dedicated, and St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence. Masaccio’s influence in this work is clear, especially in the rendition of the solid figures of the saints, their stern appearance, and the spatial depth. Fra Angelico substituted the gold background normally seen in traditional images of this type with a gold curtain. In so doing, he provided a fully developed, convincing space for his figures to occupy.
Fra Angelico’s Descent from the Cross (1434; Florence, Museo di San Marco) was commissioned by Palla Strozzi for his funerary chapel in the Church of Santa Trinità, Florence, to stand alongside Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi (1423; Florence, Uffizi). This is the first Renaissance work to successfully integrate figures into a three-dimensional landscape. Characteristic of Fra Angelico is the compassionate portrayal of a tragic moment, reflecting the serenity and discipline required for a monastic existence. In 1443, Pope Eugene IV visited San Marco and, two years later, called the artist to Rome to work on the frescoes of the Chapel of the Sacrament at the Vatican (destroyed). For Nicholas V, he created his last major commission, the frescoes in the pope’s private chapel (the Chapel of Nicholas V, Vatican; 1448), rendering scenes from the lives of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen. Fra Angelico died in Rome in 1455, and he was beatified in 1983.
Florentine painter who trained with Cosimo Rosselli. Deeply influenced by the preachings of Girolamo Savonarola, in 1500 Fra Bartolomeo became a Dominican monk and temporarily abandoned his artistic career, only to resume it in 1504. When Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo ceased to be active in Florence, Fra Bartolomeo became one of the leading masters of the city, rivaled only by Andrea del Sarto. His Adoration of the Christ Child tondo (c. 1499; Rome, Galleria Borghese) is an early work that shows the influence of Leonardo, particularly in the use of sfumato. The figure types and palette, on the other hand, betray the influence of Raphael, a personal friend of Fra Bartolomeo.
Fra Bartolomeo’s Vision of St. Bernard with Sts. Benedict and John the Evangelist (1504; Florence, Uffizi), painted for the Bianco Chapel in the Badia Fiorentina, shows a change in style. The figures are more slender and the palette less brilliant. The scene depicted is from the legend of St. Bernard, who was of frail health and experiencing difficulties in composing a homily. The Virgin and angels appeared to him to give him the strength needed to complete the task.
In 1508, Fra Bartolomeo visited Venice, where he was exposed to the work of Giovanni Bellini. His God the Father with Sts. Catherine of Siena and Mary Magdalen (1509; Lucca, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi), painted for the Dominicans of San Pietro Martire in Murano, includes the rich burgundy tones and golden lighting found in Bellini’s oeuvre. The classical columns enframing the scene and the use of a landscape as backdrop are also Venetian elements. The Incarnation with Six Saints (1515; Paris, Lou- vre) features a Venetianized composition as well. Believed to have been painted for Francis I of France, it presents the Virgin Annunciate seated, elevated from the rest of the figures, and enframed by an apse, pilasters, and columns. At either side, the saints engage in a Sacra Conversazione, with a landscape filling the spaces behind them. Fra Bartolomeo was also active in Rome and Lucca.
Italian painter born in Borgo San Sepolcro, in the Tuscan region, to a family of leather merchants. Piero was not only an artist, but also a mathematician, geometrician, and theorist. He authored two treatises, one on perspective and painting, and the other on geometry. The details of his training as painter are not completely clear, although it is possible that he studied with Domenico Veneziano, whom he assisted on the now-lost frescoes in the Church of Sant’Egidio, Florence.
Piero’s earliest work is the Misericordia Altarpiece (beg. 1445; San Sepolcro, Museo Civico), commissioned by the Confraternity of the Misericordia of San Sepolcro. The contract for the work stipulated that it had to be executed by Piero himself within three years. Piero ignored the stipulations, and the work was completed by his assistants a decade later. He painted the Baptism of Christ (c. 1450; London, National Gallery) for the Chapel of San Giovanni in the Pieve of San Sepolcro, and the Resurrection (c. 1458; San Sepolcro, Museo Civico) was originally intended for the San Sepolcro Town Hall.
The artist’s most extensive commission is the Legend of the True Cross in the Cappella Maggiore at the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo (c. 1454–1458), a complex cycle he painted for the Bacci family based on Jacobus da Voragine’s Golden Legend. Piero also worked in Rimini for Sigismondo Malatesta, painting his patron’s portrait (Paris, Louvre) and frescoes in the Tempio Malatestiano in 1451. In the earlier years of the 1470s, he was in Urbino working for Duke Federico da Montefeltro. There he rendered the portraits of the duke and his wife, Battista Sforza (1472), inspired by ancient Roman coinage.
Piero conceived his figures and objects in geometric terms. He used cylinders for limbs; spheres for faces and eyes; and circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles for architecture. His simplified approach was greatly admired by the Cubists of the 20th century, who employed a similar approach to the construction of their compositional elements. Like Veneziano, Piero used light instead of line to describe his forms. The vivid palette he employed, composed mostly of pastel colors, was also borrowed from his master.
A member of the Valois dynasty. Francis I was the son of Charles d’Angoulême and Louise of Savoy. He received the title of Duke of Valois at the age of four. In 1514, he married Claude, the daughter of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany. As the Salic laws of France prevented women from ascending the throne, Francis became the king when Louis XII, his cousin, died (1515). Francis was involved in the Italian wars when Spain and France were vying for control of Northern Italy. In 1525, he was captured by Emperor Charles V, who forced him to sign the Treaty of Madrid, in which he renounced all claims to Italian territories and ceded Burgundy to Charles. As soon as he was released, however, Francis allied himself with Clement VII, Venice, Milan, and Florence (the League of Cognac) against the emperor. Francis was a humanist, and his court became a major center of art and culture. Frenchman Jean Clouet was his court painter. Francis also imported artists from other parts of Europe, including Joos van Cleve, Benvenuto Cellini, Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio, Sebastiano Serlio, and Leonardo da Vinci.
The son of a wealthy silk merchant from Assisi. Two visions persuaded St. Francis to renounce his wealth and devote himself to the care of the ill and needy. For this, his father disowned him. St. Francis soon developed a large following, resulting in the founding of the Franciscan Order. In 1209, the order received the approval of Pope Innocent III, and in 1219, St. Francis went to Egypt to convert Mohammedans to Christianity. There he met Sultan Malek al-Kamil but failed to effect his conversion. In 1223, St. Francis built a crèche at Grecchia, establishing a custom still carried out today at Christmas. In 1224, while praying in Mount Alverna, the crucified Christ appeared to him, and he received the stigmata (the wounds of Christ). St. Francis died in 1226, in Assisi, and was canonized two years later.
The impact of St. Francis on religious life was huge, as was his influence on art. While most monks of his era lived in seclusion, he and his followers went out into the streets and preached love and compassion for the downtrodden. As a result, subjects in art changed from scenes of damnation to the infancy of Christ and the affection he and his mother, the Virgin, felt for one another. The frescoes in the Arena Chapel (1305) by Giotto and the scenes in Duccio’s Maestà Altarpiece (1308–1311; Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo) exemplify this shift.
The story of St. Francis was recorded by St. Bonaventure in the Legenda Maior. Considered the official text on the saint’s life, the Legenda became the source for artists in the representation of the saint. The frescoes in the Lower Church of San Francesco in Assisi, attributed to Giotto, assiduously follow Bonaventure’s text to instruct the faithful on the cult of the recently canonized saint. Giotto again used the text when depicting the life of St. Francis in the Bardi Chapel at Santa Croce, Florence, as did Domenico del Ghirlandaio when he painted the frescoes in the Sassetti Chapel in the Florentine Church of Santa Trinità.
A mendicant order of friars established by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209, to minister to the ill and needy. The rule of the order was confirmed in 1223, by Pope Honorius III. In 1212, St. Claire joined St. Francis, and in 1215, he established a convent and placed her as its superior, granting her the opportunity to found the Order of the Poor Claires, the female counterpart to the Franciscans. In 1221, St. Francis also established the tertiaries (Brothers and Sisters of Penance), composed of lay individuals who embraced the Franciscan life without giving up marriage and family ties. The Franciscans contributed greatly to the development of Renaissance art. Their Church of San Francesco in Assisi is filled with frescoes by leading masters, including Cimabue, Giotto, and Simone Martini. Santa Maria dei Frari in Venice boasts works by the likes of Titian and Giovanni Bellini, and San Francesco in Borgo di Sansepolcro features the work of Sassetta. In Florence, the Franciscans built the Church of Santa Croce, where the works of Taddeo Gaddi, Maso di Banco, Giotto, Filippo Brunelleschi, Desiderio da Settignano, and Bernardo Rossellino remain.
A work by Giovanni Bellini that was commissioned by Nicolò, Marco, and Benedetto Pesaro, the sons of Pietro Pesaro, to honor their deceased mother, Franceschina Tron. Bellini borrowed some of the elements of this work from Andrea Mantegna’s San Zeno Altarpiece (1456–1459; Verona, San Zeno), particularly the centered, elevated, and enthroned Virgin and Child, with musical angels at their feet, standing saints at either side lined up diagonally one behind the other to establish depth, and a heavy wooden frame that takes on the form of a classicized façade. The work also shares compositional elements with Fra Filipppo Lippi’s Barbadori Altarpiece (beg. 1437; Paris, Louvre), where again the Virgin and Child are elevated, the secondary figures form diagonals that recede into space, and a wooden classicized frame complements the scene.
In Bellini’s work, St. Nicolas and St. Peter are on the left and St. Mark and St. Benedict on the right—the namesaints of Pietro Pesaro and his sons. The apse, occupied by the Virgin and Child, which is covered in gold mosaic, recalls the architecture of San Marco in Venice. It includes a Latin inscription that translated reads, “Secure gates of Heaven, lead my spirit, direct my life, all my actions are commended to your solicitude.” These lines stem from the Liturgy of the Immaculate Conception, authored by apostolic protonotary Leonardo de Nogarolis, first published in Venice in 1478. The Virgin’s immaculacy is again referenced by the passage from Ecclesiasticus I, clearly seen in the opened book St. Benedict holds. The Church of Santa Maria dei Frari is a Franciscan church, and the Franciscans championed the adoption of the Immaculate Conception as official Church dogma, which did not take place until 1854. Since this is a piece intended to commemorate a loss, it includes a number of funerary references, including the burning flames and urn at the apex of the arch. Bellini rendered the work by using the new oil technique brought to Venice by Antonello da Messina. This resulted in a departure from his earlier style in that he was able to achieve warmer tones, a golden glow, a velvety surface, and softened contours.
The son of Ernest, Elector of Saxony, whom he succeeded in 1486. In 1502, Frederick established the University of Wittenberg and granted professorships at said institution to reformers Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. In 1519, Frederick was offered the Holy Roman imperial office by Pope Leo X, but he refused the charge, instead helping secure the throne for Charles V. Although Frederick was a Catholic and an avid collector of relics, he became one of Luther’s greatest defenders and protectors. In 1520, he was ordered via papal bull to place Luther under arrest and burn his writings, but Frederick refused. The following year, Luther was placed under imperial ban by the Diet of Worms, and again Frederick offered his protection by bringing Luther to Wartburg Castle. There Luther translated the Bible into German. Frederick never married, and because he left no heirs, he was succeeded by his brother, John the Constant. Frederick was the patron of Conrad Meit, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Albrecht Dürer.
The French Academy was established in Paris in 1648, to prevent the city’s guild from placing restrictions on artists. The founding members (the Le Nain brothers, Laurent de la Hyre, Charles Lebrun, and others) petitioned Louis XIV, then a child, for permission to establish said institution. Anne of Austria, the king’s mother and regent, favored the suppression of guilds, so permission was granted. The purpose of the academy was to provide art instruction for students, live models to draw from, and lectures by specialists. In 1655, the king allocated a stipend for the academy’s upkeep and gave its members the use of the Collège Royal de l’Université as headquarters.
The following year, the headquarters was moved into the Louvre Palace, and in 1661, a dictatorship was established under minister Jean Baptiste Colbert and Lebrun, who by now had become painter to the king. Artists in the king’s service were required to join the academy or lose their privileges, and the king’s tastes were imposed upon them. The basis for the academy’s teachings now relied on Nicolas Poussin’s views that painting must appeal to reason, be intellectual, and cater to the educated. Nature should not be imitated, but improved upon, and only noble subjects with dignified figures and gestures should be rendered. With this, the original purpose of the establishment of the academy to provide artistic freedom was unfortunately lost.
A painting technique devised during antiquity to decorate the walls or ceilings of private and public buildings. It entails coating the pictorial surface with a layer of coarse lime plaster (arriccio), on which the intended scene is drawn using red earth pigment (sinopia). The painting is then carried out in sections (giornate). Each section is covered with a layer of smooth plaster (intonaco), onto which pigments diluted in water are applied while the plaster is still wet. Once the plaster dries, the paint becomes a part of the wall. This technique creates a durable image that can last for centuries. Once the fresco is completed, touch ups can be made using a fresco secco method, where pigment is applied to the dried wall. This technique is less durable and in time can cause the paint to flake off.
Artist from the Provence region of France, born in Uzès and active in Avignon, where he died. Froment’s earliest known work is the Raising of Lazarus (1461; Florence, Uffizi), thought to have been painted for the Convento del Bosco near Florence. It is not clear whether Froment visited Italy or if the painting was rendered in France and then shipped. The work shows a massive overcrowding of figures pushed close to the foreground and sharp, angular lines in the manner of Robert Campin (see MASTER OF FLÉMALLE). Froment’s Altarpiece of the Burning Bush (1476; Aix-en-Provence, Cathedral of St-Sauveur) is his best-known work. Painted for René D’Anjou, who is included in the left panel, it presents the theme from the life of Moses, which prefigures the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and the Nativity of Christ.
Painted by Nicolas Poussin, the Funeral of Phocion depicts an episode related by Plutarch in his Lives. Phocion was an Athenian general who fought against Philip of Macedon. Against the wishes of the Athenians, he worked out a truce with the Macedonians and, as a result, was forced to poison himself with hemlock, his corpse banished from the city. In Poussin’s work, Phocion’s body is being carried out of Athens. In the story, he is later vindicated and given the burial of a hero within the city’s walls. In a companion piece also by Poussin, the Gathering of the Ashes of Phocion (1648; Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery), the hero’s wife collects his remains for proper burial. Poussin’s treatment of the landscape in these works owes a debt to the landscapes of Annibale Carracci and Domenichino. As in his prototypes, Poussin portrayed a nature tamed by man, with calculated parallel planes that recede into space balanced by the verticality of strategically placed trees. Poussin’s classicized approach befits the ancient story of vindication and moral virtue.